1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus that performs image processing in response to a request for an image forming job, and more particularly, to a technology to select, when an abnormal condition occurs that an image forming operation corresponding to an accepted image forming job cannot be performed, the processing to be performed thereafter from among a plurality of processings.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, many companies have been using, as image forming apparatuses, printer systems comprising a plurality of terminals such as personal computers on which a word processing software program, an image processing software program and the like are installed, and a printer that receives requests for print jobs from the terminals through a network to perform printing. The efficiency of work is increased by the terminals sharing one printer.
The printer performs printing in the order in which the print job requests from terminals are made. For example, when paper of the specified size is not set, the printing cannot be performed. For such a case, conventionally, a method that the printer waits, without accepting any print job requests from other users, until paper of the specified size is set is fixedly set in advance as the processing to be performed thereafter.
However, only by fixedly using the method, the case where paper of the specified size is not set cannot flexibly be handled according to the use environment of the printer, so that the printer system is poor in usability.
For example, when the use environment is such that it is desirable for the printer to be stopped as rarely as possible because the printer is connected a large-scale network and print job requests are frequently made, the users other than the user requesting the print job are inconvenienced because they have to wait until the paper is set.
On the other hand, when the use environment is such that the printer is shared by a small number of users and not so many print job requests are made, it is not very inconvenient to the other users if the printer is stopped, and convenience is afforded to the user requesting the print job because he can perform printing in preference to the other users when the paper is set.
As described above, conventionally, when an abnormal condition that a print job cannot be executed occurs, the method to handle the case is merely fixedly set, so that various use environments cannot flexibly be dealt with. As a result, the interests of the user requesting the print job and the other users cannot appropriately be coordinated.
This problem can arise when a processing method (control method) to handle the abnormal condition that printing cannot be performed is fixedly set.
The present invention is made in view of the above-mentioned problem, and an object thereof is to provide an image processing apparatus in which by enabling flexibly handling to be performed according to the use environment, when an abnormal condition that printing cannot be performed occurs, the interests of a user requesting a print job and the other users are coordinated to enable smooth printing.
To achieve the above-mentioned object, according to a first aspect of the present invention, an image processing apparatus that performs a predetermined processing in response to occurrence of an abnormal condition that an image forming job cannot be executed is provided with: first setting unit for presetting a first processing for the apparatus as a common processing to respond to the abnormal condition; second setting unit for setting a second processing for the image forming job as a processing to respond to the abnormal condition; and priority assigning unit for assigning priorities to the first processing and the second processing.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, an image forming apparatus that performs a predetermined processing in response to occurrence of an abnormal condition that an image forming job cannot be executed is provided with: first setting unit for setting a first processing for a first image forming job as a processing to respond to the abnormal condition; second setting unit for setting a second processing different from the first processing for a second image forming job as a processing to respond to the abnormal condition; and a controller for performing the first processing when the abnormal condition occurs with respect to the first image forming job, and performing the second processing when the abnormal condition occurs with respect to the second image forming job.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, a method of controlling an image forming apparatus that performs a predetermined processing in response to occurrence of an abnormal condition that an image forming job cannot be executed is provided with the steps of: presetting a first processing for the apparatus as a common processing to respond to the abnormal condition; setting a second processing for the image forming job as a processing to respond to the abnormal condition; selecting either the first processing or the second processing according to priorities assigned thereto; and performing the selected processing in response to occurrence of the abnormal condition when the abnormal condition occurs.
These and other objects, advantages and features of the invention will become apparent from the following description thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which illustrate specific embodiments of the invention.